Hundreds of Scottish tourist firms fear collapse, says big new survey

by XPRESS, 13 January 2022

A recent survey by Scottish Tourism Alliance (STA) found that One in three tourism and hospitality tourism professionals in Scotland said it was expected to fail by 2022.

The industry association consulted 1,335 enterprises in 31 Scottish regions in December and January, of which just over half said they had either zero or just one or two months "cash reserves to keep afloat. Maintaining the 12.5% rate of VAT is equally considered as a priority measure to stimulate economic recovery, and removing restrictions was considered likely to make a fundamental difference to all sectors of the tourism industry.

The request to look for evidence had been initiated by the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) during a Council of the UK Tourism Industry meeting organised by the STA during the pandemic. The Scottish Government has been criticised for leaving hospitality 'in limbo' after postponing a decision on easing restrictions on the sector by Covid until next week.

Marc Crothall said the number of responses to the survey demonstrated how keen tourism companies were to communicate their financial woes and economic instability.

The measures have been introduced after Christmas, among them, the reinstatement of social rules of dissociation, the restriction of open air events up to a capacity of 500 people, the reinstatement of social detachment of one meter in indoor catering, and the obligation for clubs selling alcohol back to the table service.